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Consonant-‐Vowel Place Feature Interactions Jaye Padgett 1

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Consonant-‐Vowel Place Feature Interactions Jaye Padgett 1 Citation: Padgett, Jaye (2011). Consonant-vowel place feature interactions. In Van Oostendorp, M., C. Ewen, E. Hume & K. Rice (eds.) The Blackwell companion to phonology, volume 3. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1761- 1786. Consonant-Vowel Place Feature Interactions Jaye Padgett 1. Introduction Both consonants and vowels are formed with constrictions in the oral cavity, made by the lips, the tongue blade, the tongue body, and/or the tongue root. Since they make demands on the same organs, it should not be surprising that the place features of consonants can influence those of vowels or vice versa. Indeed such interactions are common: consonants and vowels frequently assimilate in place to one another, or dissimilate. But the empirical territory is not simple, and attempts to understand consonant-vowel place interactions (henceforth “C-V interactions”) have led to much unresolved debate in phonological theory. The questions most debated have had to do with the nature of the phonological features we assume, with questions of feature structure, and with claims about the locality of phonological processes. However, as the field of phonology gravitated toward questions of constraint interaction under the influence of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993 [2004]), attention toward these representational questions faded, without having been resolved. Whatever the theoretical framework, though, the empirical puzzles underlying the debate about C-V interactions remain, and remain interesting. The discussion in this chapter will necessarily reflect the open-endedness of the historical discussion, as well as the framework in which that discussion was held – autosegmental phonology and feature geometry. Section 2 begins by presenting a typology of C-V interactions. Section 3 presents an influential model of feature geometry as a point of departure and discusses the challenges raised for that model by C-V interactions. Section 4 discusses a prominent approach to these challenges, a “unified feature” approach to consonants and vowels advocated by Clements (1991), Herzallah (1990), Hume (1994, 1996), Clements and Hume (1995), and others. In section 5 we pause to discuss issues of locality and transparency in C-V interactions. Section 6 discusses an alternative to the unified feature approach, due to Ní Chiosáin and Padgett (1993) and Flemming (1995 [2002]; 2003), called the “inherent vowel place” approach here. Section 6 concludes. 2. A Typology of C-V Interactions The typology given here is not meant as an exhaustive survey of the kinds of C-V interaction known. Instead the goal is to classify processes according to the challenges they have presented for phonological theory. In particular, a key distinction will be made between “within-category” C-V interactions and “cross-category” C-V interactions.1 Also, for space reasons the main focus will be on assimilations, with only occasional reference made to dissimilatory cases. 1 These terms are borrowed from Clements (1991). Compare the “Type I” vs. “Type II” distinction of Ní Chiosáin and Padgett (1993). 2.1. Within-Category Interactions It may seem incoherent to posit “within-category” interactions between the distinct categories of consonant and vowel. However, it is well known that consonants can have secondary articulations that are essentially vocalic in nature: vowel- or glide-like gestures, produced along with a consonant’s primary place of articulation. Some representative examples are illustrated in (1).2 (1) (Semi-)vocalic secondary articulations labialization palatalization velarization pharyngealization tw tj tˠ tˤ Indeed, glides themselves are consonants with vocalic properties. “Within-category” interactions are those between a vowel and another (semi)-vocalic element, whether the latter is a secondary articulation or a primary one (a glide). Let us begin with interactions between vowels and glides. The examples in (2) are from Kabardian (Colarusso 1992:32-3). Kabardian has a ‘vertical’ vowel system arguably consisting of only the two phonemes /ə,a/. These vowels assimilate in backness and roundness to a following coda glide. According to Colarusso, the triggering glide is elided in all but careful speech, with some compensatory lengthening (not shown). Effects like this of glides on vowels, affecting either vowel color (backness and/or roundness) or height, seem common in languages. (2) /qʼəw/ [qʼuw] ‘swan’ /bəj/ [bij] ‘enemy’ /psaw/ [psow] ‘alive’ /t͡saj/ [t͡sej] ‘one of wool (kind of coat)’ Turning to vocalic secondary articulations, non-low short vowels in Irish are front before palatalized consonants and back before non-palatalized consonants; the latter are velarized. The symbols “I/E” denote underlying high and mid vowels (resp.) of indeterminate backness. (3) /mˠIdʲ/ [mˠɪdʲ] ‘we/us’ /pˠIntˠ/ [pˠʊntˠ] ‘pound’ /sʲIvʲ/ [ʃɪvʲ] ‘you (pl.)’ /skʲIbˠ/ [skʲʊbˠ] ‘snatch’ /tˠEtʲ/ [tˠɛtʲ] ‘smoke’ /bˠEsˠ/ [bˠʌsˠ] ‘palm (of hand)’ /tʲEpʲ/ [tʲɛpʲ] ‘fail’ /lʲEmˠ/ [lʲʌmˠ] ‘with me’ Similarly, labialized consonants can cause a neighboring vowel to be round, as in Kabardian /dəʁʷ/ à [doʁʷ] ‘thief’ (Colarusso 1992:30). In a case involving pharyngealization (or 2 This presentation simplifies reality in some ways. For example, sounds transcribed Cw or Cˠ might be labio- velarized and not just labialized or velarized. In addition, “pharyngealized” sounds are more accurately described as “uvularized” in at least some cases (McCarthy 1994). 2 uvularization, see note 2), emphatic consonants in Palestinian Arabic cause /a/ to ablaut to [u] instead of [i] in first measure imperfect verbs (Herzallah 1990): the imperfect form of [naðˤam] ‘compose’ is [ji-nðˤum] rather than expected *[ ji-nðˤim] (cf. [katab], [ji-ktib] ‘write’). Herzallah argues that secondary pharyngealization involves a component of backness that spreads to the vowel in these cases. In a more typical case of emphasis spread, vowels in Ayt Seghrouchen Tamazight Berber are backed and lowered next to emphatic consonants (Rose 1996), as shown in (4). Rose argues that emphasis spread is the spreading of the feature [RTR] ([Retracted Tongue Root]). (4) a. [izi] ‘fly’ b. /izˤi/ [ezˤe] ‘bladder’ [llef] ‘to divorce’ /tˤtˤef/ [tˤtˤɛf] ‘to hold’ [nðu] ‘to be shaken’ /nðˤu/ [nðˤo] ‘to cross’ Consonants commonly acquire vocalic secondary articulations by assimilating to adjacent vowels. For example, Russian consonants are palatalized before certain suffixes beginning in [i] or [e] (Padgett to appear): (5) Nom.sg. Dim.nom.sg. Loc.sg. stol stolʲik stolʲe ‘table’ dom domʲik domʲe ‘house’ ʂar ʂarʲik ʂarʲe ‘ball’ zont zontʲik zontʲe ‘umbrella’ A similar palatalization occurs in Nupe (Hyman 1970). Also in Nupe, consonants are rounded (or labiovelarized) before rounded vowels, e.g., [eɡʷũ] and [eɡʷo] for /eɡũ/ ‘mud’ and /eɡo/ ‘grass’ (respectively, tones not shown). It is worth noting that the examples of within-category assimilation presented above never involve a vowel changing the features of a glide or of a consonant’s secondary articulation. Such cases seem at best rare, but it is not clear why that should be. Again, what all within-category interactions have in common is interaction among overtly (semi-)vocalic elements. Glides are [-consonantal] in the feature theory of the Sound Pattern of English (SPE, Chomsky & Halle 1968). Vocalic secondary articulations are likewise basically vocalic in constriction degree, even if they accompany primary constrictions that are [+consonantal]. For reasons that will become clear below, C-V interactions of this sort have created little controversy in phonological theory. This is in contrast to C-V interactions in which the primary articulation of a [+consonantal] segment appears to interact with a vowel’s place, cases called “cross-category” here. 2.2. Cross-Category Interactions Numerous cases are known in which plain (not rounded) labial consonants cause vowels to be round. This happens, for example, in a dialect of Mapila Malayalam described by Bright 3 (1972).3 In this dialect, a vowel is inserted for apparently phonotactic reasons. The vowel is generally something like [ɨ] (not a phoneme of the language), as shown in (6)a; but it surfaces as [u] after [o] or [u] ((6)b) or after a labial consonant ((6)c). The rule is productive, applying even in borrowings like [trippu]. (6) a. paːlɨ ‘milk’ b. onnu ‘one’ c. caːvu ‘death’ pandɨ ‘shake’ nuːru ‘hundred’ jappu ‘pound’ kurvaːnɨ ‘Koran’ unnu ‘dine!’ islaːmu ‘Islam’ dressɨ ‘dress’ oːɖu ‘run!’ trippu ‘trip’ Another well known case occurs in Turkish (Lees 1961; Lightner 1972). Within historically native Turkish roots, a high vowel following [a] and any intervening consonants is normally [ɨ] (sometimes transcribed [ɯ]). But it is [u] when a labial consonant intervenes, e.g., yavru ‘cub, chick’, armud ‘pear’. Cross-category dissimilations also occur. For example, in Cantonese a syllable rhyme cannot have both a rounded vowel and a labial coda, e.g., *[up] (Cheng 1991). Other languages showing C-V interactions involving vowel rounding and plain labial consonants are discussed by Hyman (1973), Campbell (1974), Sagey (1986), Clements (1991), Selkirk (1993), Flemming (1995 [2002]), and Anttila (2002). There seems to be a similar connection between coronal place of articulation and front vowels. A frequently cited example comes from Maltese Arabic (Brame 1972; Hume 1994; 1996). In imperfective Measure I verbs, the prefix vowel is normally identical to the vowel of the stem, as shown in (7)a. However, when the stem begins with a coronal obstruent, the prefix vowel is [i], (7)b. Note that some of the verbs in (7)b undergo an independently existing ablaut by which the imperfective stem vowel becomes [o]; this occurs in verbs without initial coronal obstruents too, e.g. [barad] vs. [jo-brod] ‘to file’. In these verbs the prefix vowel is normally [o]. (7) Perfective Imperfective a. kotor jo-ktor ‘to increase’ ʔasam ja-ʔsam ‘to break’ ħeles je-ħles ‘to set free’ nizel ji-nzel ‘to descend’ UR = /nizil/ 3 Bright relies on Upadhyaya (1968) for data. The Mapila Malayalam (MM) data resemble the more often- cited Tulu facts also discussed by Bright; in fact, Bright suggests that the MM facts are due to contact with Tulu. 4 b.
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